NASA Unveils Its Newest, Most Powerful Supercomputer
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National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA November 2004 Communication for the Information Technology Age NASA unveils its newest, most powerful supercomputer NASA’s newest supercomputer, meet its mission goals and the Vision for code used to achieve this result was ‘Columbia,’ has been named one of the Space Exploration. conceived and developed in that same world’s most powerful production Named to honor the crew of the time frame, and is much more straight- supercomputers by the TOP500 Project space shuttle Columbia lost Feb. 1, 2003, forward than the traditional approach. at SC2004, the International Conference the new supercomputer is comprised of Our simplified implementation, allowed an integrated cluster of 20 intercon- by shared memory systems like the SGI nected SGI® Altix® 512-processor sys- Altix, translates directly into improved tems, for a total of 10,240 Intel® effectiveness for users of our systems." The almost instant produc- tivity of the Columbia supercomputer architecture and technology has made the system available to a broad spectrum NASA’s new supercomputer ‘Columbia’ was of NASA-spon- installed at Ames in less than 120 days. NASA photos by Tom Trower sored scientists. Feedback from scientists is ex- of High Performance Computing, Net- tremely positive. working and Storage in Pittsburg. "The Colum- Columbia, which achieved a bench- bia system is a mark rating of 51.9 teraflops on 10,240 Left to right: Walt Brooks, NAS division chief; Ronnie Kenneth, CEO, Voltaire; tremendous de- processors, is ranked second on the Ghassem Asrar, NASA HQ; Ames Center Director G. Scott Hubbard; Richard velopment for TOP500 List, just behind Blue Gene, Dracott, Intel; and Bob Bishop, CEO SGI, display recognition plaques NASA and the IBM’s supercomputer to be installed at presented to them by Brooks. nation. Simula- the Department of Energy's Lawrence tion of the evolu- Livermore National Laboratory. Itanium® 2 processors. Columbia builds tion of the Earth and planetary ecosys- "Large, integrated simulation envi- upon the highly successful collabora- tems with high fidelity has been beyond ronments like those we have at Ames tion between NASA, Silicon Graphics the reach of Earth scientists for decades," are crucial to NASA’s missions, and Co- Inc. (SGI) and Intel Corporation that NASA's Deputy Associate Administra- lumbia has provided a breakthrough developed the world's first 512-proces- tor of the Science Mission Directorate increase in our computational power," sor Linux server. That server, the SGI® Ghassem Asrar said. "With Columbia, said Ames Center Director G. Scott Altix® located at Ames, was named scientists are already seeing dramatic Hubbard. "A high rating on the TOP500 ‘Kalpana,’ after Columbia astronaut and improvements in the fidelity of simula- list is an impressive achievement, but Ames' alumna Kalpana Chawla. tions in such areas as global ocean circu- for NASA, the immediate availability to NASA unveiled its newest lation, prediction of large-scale struc- analyze important issues like ‘Return to supercomputer during a ribbon-cutting tures in the universe and the physics of Flight’ for the space shuttle, space sci- ceremony Oct. 26 at Ames. Columbia supernova detonations," he said. ence, Earth modeling and aerospace was built and installed at the NASA "This amazing new supercomputer vehicle design for exploration, is the Advanced Supercomputing facility at system dramatically increases NASA's true measure of success." Ames in less than 120 days. capabilities and revolutionizes our ca- "Columbia allows NASA to perform Within days of completion of the pacity for conducting scientific research numerical simulations at the cutting supercomputer’s installation, Columbia and engineering design," Hubbard said. edge of science and engineering," said achieved a Linpack benchmark rating "It will be one of the fastest, largest and Walt Brooks, chief of the NASA Ad- of 42.7 teraflops on just 16 nodes with an most productive supercomputers in the vanced Supercomputing (NAS) Division 88 percent efficiency rating, exceeding world, providing an estimated 10-fold at Ames. "As the largest example of an the previously best-reported perfor- increase in NASA's supercomputing ca- important, high-end computing archi- mance by a significant margin. This was pacity. It is already having a major im- tecture developed in the U.S., part of followed almost immediately by the 51.7 pact on NASA's science, aeronautics and this system will be available to the teraflop rating reported Nov. 8 for the exploration programs, in addition to nation’s best research teams. The swift entire system. playing a critical role in preparing the design and deployment of Columbia "What is most noteworthy is that space shuttle for return to safe flight next has redefined the concept of we were able to post such a significant year," Hubbard said. supercomputer development." and efficient Linpack result in such a "With SGI and Intel, we set out to With Columbia at its core, said short time," said Bob Ciotti, chief sys- revitalize NASA's computing capabili- Brooks, the NAS facility provides an tems engineer for the Columbia instal- ties, and the Columbia system has done integrated computing, visualization and lation project. "Not only was the system so in a spectacular way," said Brooks. data storage environment to help NASA deployed in less than 120 days, but the continued on page 2 amesnews.arc.nasa.gov ‘See inside for special NASA Ames 65th Anniversary insert’ Immune system inspires machine-software fault detector Using the human immune system ture can then be used to identify future is still in the research phase. Later, scien- as an inspiration, scientists at NASA occurrences of similar faults. Similarly, tists hope to modify it so it will work as Ames are developing software to find the biological immune system quickly stand-alone software. faults in complex machines. recognizes diseases to which it has been In the near future, when engineers The software 'tool' - called an algo- exposed previously or has been 'immu- use MILD software on another machine, rithm, or mathematical recipe - looks for nized' to some known diseases," they will need to set up the software so abnormalities in a machine's hardware Krishnakumar said. it will monitor data from that machine. and software. The mathematical recipe, "Another advantage of using the "However, we now are enhancing the which engineers may well someday put immune system as an inspiration is that MILD software 'tool' so it can more eas- we can program the MILD software tool ily be used for other machines," to recognize known faults that occur in Krishnakumar said. "Eventually, engi- a machine. Similarly, a biological im- neers could use MILD algorithms in any mune system recognizes diseases to kind of software and hardware in ma- which it has been exposed," chine environments -- from machines in Krishnakumar said. a shop to flying airplanes and space- So far, scientists have tested the craft," Krishnakumar ventured. MILD software in a C-17 aircraft flight "We expect future machines to have simulator at NASA Ames to collect nor- their own immune systems so that they mal and simulated airplane failures. "We could be used for long-duration space used the aircraft simulator as a proof-of- missions, or any other use where techni- concept experiment to test how well cal support would be limited," the MILD algorithm worked," Krishnakumar said. Krishnakumar explained. The software BY JOHN BLUCK NASA unveils powerful supercomputer continued from front page "Not only were scientists doing real Earth new age in scientific discovery, and in spacecraft as well as other complex and space analysis during the system based on NASA's initial success, it seems systems, is part of the Multi-level Im- build, but within days of the full instal- likely that we'll be discussing new scien- mune Learning Detection (MILD) soft- lation, we achieved a Linpack bench- tific breakthroughs in the very near fu- ware 'tool,' under development at NASA mark rating of 42.7 teraflops on 16 nodes ture," he said. Ames in the Computational Sciences with an 88 percent efficiency rating, ex- "The launching of the Columbia sys- Division, Code TC. ceeding the current best reported num- tem shows what's possible when gov- "The human immune system doesn't try to identify what is good, only what is Walt Brooks (left) chats bad," said MILD principle investigator with NASA Administrator Kalmanje Krishnakumar, a scientist at Sean O’Keefe (second Ames. "Similarly, MILD software only from left) and Chief of tries to identify what is bad, and that's Staff John Schumacher one of the main ideas behind MILD, which is similar to biological immune (third from left) while systems," Krishnakumar said. Co-inves- Ames Center Director G. tigator on the MILD project is Dipankar Scott Hubbard (third from Dasgupta of the University of Memphis, right) and other guests Tenn., who is spending a year as a visit- look on. ing faculty member at NASA Ames. "You can have identical MILD soft- ware recipes distributed throughout the machine that look at different potential abnormalities," Krishnakumar ex- plained. "Typically, a problem will show up in more than one place in a machine, and comparisons of different parts of NASA photo by Tom Trower the machine help us to more accurately identify problems early," he added. MILD uses data from sensors in ber by a significant margin," he said. ernment and technology leaders work machines to find patterns of system faults "With the completion of the Colum- together toward a goal of truly national and damage to clarify if systems are bia system, NASA, SGI and Intel have importance," said Paul Otellini, presi- working properly. In an aircraft, sen- created a powerful national resource, dent and COO of Intel Corporation.